Visiting Thrillville

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Frontier's latest looks to pack in as many attractions as a real theme park.

By David Adams

Don't think of Thrillville as just RollerCoaster Tycoon on consoles. Though the game is being created by the same folks who brought us RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 for the PC, here Frontier Developments is expanding on the theme-park sim concept to offer a turnstile-stuffing combination of coaster building, park management, generous minigames, mission-based play, and, of course, a first-person view of the rides themselves. Today we stopped in to LucasArts, which is publishing the game, to see how Thrillville is coming along. Given that Frontier is packing so many things to do in one game, Thrillville may be a virtual amusement park in its own right -- something to visit rather than just manage.

How does it work? Rather than giving players a permanent God's-eye perspective, in Thrillville you walk through the park yourself, playing as a young man inheriting his father's amusement business and trying to fight off the competing, Slugworth-like Globo-Joy corporation. All told, you'll have five parks to work through, each with three differently themed areas, though how you work through them is largely up to you.

You could, for instance, just proceed through most of Thrillville's 150 missions, which involve improving park restroom facilities, for instance, or building a coaster with a high enough fun factor. Along the way, though, you'll also find items such as cash, Globo-Joy gadgets, or blueprints which eventually unlock new attractions. You'll also be able to talk to the park's many guests, each of which has his own changing stats (happiness, thirst, appreciation for park ambiance, and such). Talking to guests can win them over, or encourage them to tell you how the park is doing.

Tweak Thrillville's rides for maximum craziness.

If you're interested in the nitty-gritty, Thrillville tracks classic sim factors such as park income, power usage, attendee happiness, and even marketing to specific demographics to increase revenue. Whether you choose to micromanage or not, Thrillville also includes 24 minigames -- all of which you can place in your parks -- ranging from shooting galleries to bumper cars to affectionate takes on classic arcade games. Better yet, all the minigames offer multiplayer for up to four people in party mode, and some -- like Go-Karts, for example -- can be customized in the same way you tweak the perfect coaster.

In addition to the ride-building and park-walking we saw at E3, today we had a chance to see in more detail how Thrillville keeps players smiling. Coaster and ride design is intuitive -- the game uses visual cues to show where you can or can't place track, and features an auto-tracking system when you don't want to piece it out yourself -- and you'll have at least 25 coaster types to work with. We also saw some other attractions, like classic carousel swings or a stomach-twisting, spinning and looping Orbit contraption. Frontier promises at least 75 rides in all. In each case, placing an attraction is as easy as laying coaster track.

Want to build a park from scratch? You can, but you'll have to earn it -- playing through the first four parks unlocks a fifth, which is wide open for your ambitious designs.

Along with customizing rides for thrills or cash, and even hopping in the seat, you'll also spend time talking with park guests. Frontier showed us the game's conversation interface, which lets you make small talk (the game includes some charmingly random trivia -- know about Pangaea, for instance?) and ingratiate yourself to your guests. From there you can make friends, ask for feedback, act as matchmaker, or even just ask for a hug.

We also saw a few more of Thrillville's themed areas, each of which has some amusing details. A superhero-themed land, for instance, had a massive character lifting heavy objects, while a dinosaur area featured giant animatronic animals complete with trademark animatronic jerkiness. Thrillville has 15 themes in all, including sci-fi, Egyptian, Gold Rush, and pirate-flavored areas.

While exploring the parks and customizing rides looked like good fun, the unexpected treat in Thrillville may be the minigames, each of which is a park attraction -- and most of which are unlocked as you play the game. We saw Gradius- and 1942-style shooters, complete with end bosses, as well as an unsettlingly cute game called Sparkle Island which seemed to borrow love from Parasol Stars. Other games are based on real attractions like bumper cars, shooting galleries, RC racing, or Go-Karts, the last of which includes customizable tracks. A few are first-person shooters, such as a Wild West-themed robot fight, while others, like Soccer Sumo -- which looks a bit like Super Monkey Ball's Monkey Fight -- offer their own odd fun.

It's nice to see how Frontier has integrated the minigames into the larger game. If you're training a park staff member, such as a mechanic for instance, his circuit-fixing skills become a puzzle minigame. If you set up an entertainment stage, on the other hand, you'll have to show your dance skills using a rhythm-based minigame.

Doing well in minigames will earn you cash, complete missions, or entertain visitors. When you're not managing the park, Thrillville lets others join you in the minigames, either competitively or cooperatively.

While Thrillville might not blow you away visually, Frontier is adding nice touches like glowing highlights on bright surfaces and smart cameras for seeing rides in action. Another nice touch: Xbox and PSP owners will be able to share custom rides with each other, over Xbox Live or ad-hoc wireless, respectively.

What impressed us most today is how much there is to do in Thrillville. Dry simulation this ain't -- instead, Thrillville looks to offer the kind of immediate action and casual fun you'd want from a console title, while still including classic sim elements for players who want to go deep. If Frontier gets the minigames right, these alone could make the game worth grabbing -- with coaster building, mission play, and park management being just that many more ways to have a good time.